Prenatal Care

Narrative

Prenatal care — especially care beginning in the first trimester—allows health care providers to identify and manage a woman’s risk factors and health conditions and to provide expectant parents with relevant health care advice. The reported rate of first trimester prenatal care utilization has been increasing fairly steadily since the early 1990s; however, changes made to the standard birth certificate in 2003, which are gradually being adopted by the states, make comparisons over time impossible. As of January 1, 2008, 27 states had implemented the revised birth certificate representing 65 percent of all U.S. births.1

In 2008, in the 27 reporting areas that used the revised birth certificate, 71.0 percent of women giving birth were determined to have received prenatal care in the first trimester, while 7.0 percent of women began prenatal care in the third trimester or did not receive any prenatal care. Early prenatal care utilization differs by race/ethnicity. Non-Hispanic Asian and non-Hispanic White women were most likely to receive prenatal care beginning in the first trimester (77.9 and 76.7 percent, respectively), followed by non-Hispanic White women (76.6 percent). Non-Hispanic American Indian/Alaska Native women and non-Hispanic Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander women were least likely to receive first trimester care (53.3 and 54.8 percent, respectively).

Timing of prenatal care initiation also varied by maternal age. Teen-aged mothers were least likely to receive timely prenatal care, with less than one-third of those under the age of 15 and about half of those aged 15-19 years initiating prenatal care in the first trimester (32.9 percent and 54.3 percent, respectively). In comparison, over 70 percent of mothers-to-be aged 25 years and older received early prenatal care.

Information on this page can be found in the print version of Child Health USA 2011. Suggested Citation: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Health Resources and Services Administration, Maternal and Child Health Bureau. Child Health USA 2011. Rockville, Maryland: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2011.